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René Clément’s undisputed masterpiece, Jeux interdits is almost unquestionably the most compelling and intensely poignant drama featuring young children ever filmed. The film retains its power to shock and to drive its audience to tears, fifty years after its first release. Few films possess the purity of expression and haunting poetry which this film sustains from start to finish.
Although it is not directly a film about the abomination of war, Jeux interdits makes a powerful anti-war statement, mainly by showing its effect on impressionable young children. The disturbing way in which the children Michel and Paulette incorporate what little they see of the war into their play not only reveals the corrupting influence of the worst in human activities, but it brings home with startling vividness the true sickening perversity of war. It is as if the children are holding up a flickering candle to show the worst - the absolute worst - in human nature.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about this film is the way in which the behaviour of the children Michel and Paulette is presented as being almost adult. Their "forbidden game" is rendered totally acceptable from their perspective, so that when the animal graveyard is finally revealed, the effect is one of tragic poignancy rather than horror. By contrast, it is the adults who torment the children who appear irrational and menacing. Whilst Michel and Paulette conduct themselves with dignity and act from what appear to be the purest of motives, their parents and their neighbours bully, deceive, threaten and fight. The children create a world of unparalleled beauty and purity whilst the adults around them ruin their world with their lies and their petty differences. Notice that it is only Paulette who refuses to drink milk from a dirty glass containing a dead fly. The grown-ups appear quite oblivious to the filth they live in.
What makes this a truly great film, one which will endure for as long as film archives will, is the quite remarkable performance from the two child actors, Georges Poujouly and Brigitte Fossey. The angelic Fossey is particularly captivating, showing not just great promise as an actress, but possessing a genuine infantine purity which is responsible for much of the film's charm and impact. Fossey's innocence is contrasted superbly with Poujouly's impish mischievousness, and the two actors have a brother-sister rapport which is quite mesmerising to watch. Narciso Yepes' spiritually moving music heightens the effect, making some of the scenes involving the two children very emotionally demanding for an unsuspecting audience.
The making of the Jeux interdits is also quite noteworthy. Originally, its producer, Robert Dorfmann envisaged making a film containing three segments, of which Jeux interdits would form the middle part. He had to abandon the project when, having made the Jeux interdits segment in 1950, the funds dried up. However, Dorfmann was so pleased with this short film that he decided to extend it to a full-length film. The following year, the filming resumed, with the same cast and location, to complete the film. So successful was director René Clément's skill at hiding the fact that the children and location had changed considerably since the first filming that the join is virtually unnoticeable in the final film. Another problem was that the film was cut by 15 minutes to 85 minutes prior to its first release, resulting in an abrupt start and end to the film.
In spite of this, the film was an immediate success throughout the world. Not only was it a box office triumph, receiving favourable reviews from virtually every quarter, but it was showered with awards to an extent which is rare for a European film. It won the Grand Prix Indépendant at Cannes in 1952. the Golden Lion award at Venice in 1952, the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1953, a British Academy Award in 1954, and many others. This immense popularity and deluge of prizes is a genuine reflection of the quality of the film, which is a masterpiece by anyone's standards, but also of its capacity to engage and move its audience, no matter who that audience might be. Jeux interdits has something which appeals to a common humanity, offering a simplistic moral perspective which makes it probably one of the most eloquent and genuine works in the history of cinema.
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